This invention relates generally to the field of surgical instruments and specifically to trays for transporting sterile, surgical instruments to an operating room and storing these sterile instruments for ready use during surgical procedures.
Storage and sterilization systems for dental, medical and orthopedic instruments are well known in the art. Many apparatuses employing manners of stacking and spacing surgical instruments have been devised. In the realm of medical surgical instruments, storage trays for sterilization and storage of instruments employed in individualized procedures have been devised and utilized. These systems can be limited in that the systems are not designed to accommodate certain procedures. The need for these procedures often arises due to complications from the initial operation room procedure. The General Instrument Kit utilized in many of the operating room procedures performed today does not possess the versatility to handle these changes in the operating room procedures.
The term General Instrument Kit includes any instrument kit that contains ringed instruments such as snaps, Kellys, Ailises, Babcocks, Kochers, needle holders, sponge sticks, scissors etc. General Instrument Kit shall include Gyn, Thoracic, Trauma, Vascular but not exclude others not mentioned. The current way of setting up general/major/trauma instruments for a surgical case is time consuming. Basically what happens is, instruments are packaged and sterilized by Central Supply Department personnel. These packages of instruments are sent to the Operating Room in preparation for a surgical procedure. In the operating room a back table is lined with sterile drapes much like a table cloth. On top of this sterile drape many sterile supplies are opened and placed on this back table. One surgical nurse does a surgical scrub, puts on a sterile gown and gloves and begins to rearrange the multiple sterile supplies needed for the case. First the back table is lined with towels and one or two towels are made into tight rolls on which will rest the 50 to 100 ringed instruments in a perpendicular manner.
If this roll is not made tight enough or too large, the instruments frequently fall into each other or off the roll and are difficult to manage especially if the case is an emergency. The ringed instruments are removed from the sterile buckets from Central Supply, unstrung from the two long armed xe2x80x9cstringersxe2x80x9d by laying them along the rolled towels in a perpendicular fashion. These stringers have rotating clamps on either end to stop instruments from failing off. Frequently, especially if rushed, instruments get caught on these clamps. Instruments that are not strung or are loose in the bottom of the buckets, such as forceps, knife handles, retractors or scissors, need to be gathered up, arranged and organized on the back table. All this needs to take place before a complete count of all instruments and sponges can be done. This whole process is not only time consuming but can also be stressful, especially in an emergency.
Many Scrub Nurses will also set up the instruments in their own personal styles which can become awkward if another scrub nurse relieves and a specific instrument cannot be located during the case or for the closing count, when all instruments have to be accounted for. With many cases being done by Laparoscopic methods, it is necessary to either have a Major Instrument Kit set up in case it is needed and the procedure becomes an Open case or take the time while the procedure is under way to set up and count these instruments. Both of these processes can take approximately ten minutes or longer. Almost 99.5% of the time a Laparoscopic case does not turn into an open case and these Major Instruments are gathered up at the end of the case, mostly unused, and are sent back down to Central Supply to be reprocessed, thus making unnecessary work for both departments.
Although there are many apparatuses for retaining surgical instruments, commonly known as instrument trays on the market, most of these are made for specific, specialty instruments such as Orthopedics or very fine Plastic or Vascular instruments and Laparoscopic instruments. The trays for very fine or delicate instruments tend to have the instruments stacked one on top of the next or simply placed on a rubber mat. The Orthopedic instruments are held in craters that are molded specifically for their individual shapes. Those that are held in a perpendicular manner are held with forged metal or rubber type cleats. If these methods were used to hold a General Instrument Kit, the amount of cleats needed to hold the 50-100 ringed instruments found in the kits to which I am referring would be prohibitive in size. This many cleats would also be very costly to manufacture.
What is needed is a surgical instrument tray, capable of retaining all the general/major/trauma instruments and arranging theses instruments in such a way that said tray may be placed in the operating room in sterile manner, being ready for operational usage.
The instant invention comprises a sturdy plastic or rubberized mat or tray that holds and displays in an instant, substantially all the instruments generally found in a General Instrument Kit. The advantages of this invention are that the ringed instruments found in a General Instrument Kit are held and displayed with handles disposed in a perpendicular manner, similar to that used by scrub nurses on their back tables. Due to the design of the tray, upon extraction of the non ringed instruments from the tray, the instruments are in ready position to be relayed to the person performing the operation, with no further manipulation of the instruments. The device is delivered in the above described state and is thus available for use upon delivery into an operating room setting. No additional setup time and personnel are required.
The tray may be configured in multiple embodiments, two of which are the single tiered and the double tiered arrangement. In the singled tiered preferred embodiment, the long horizontal rectangular channel 2, FIG. 1 at the front of my instrument tray allows for easy loading and counting of ringed instruments. The section dividers 1 allow for support to hold the ringed instruments in a perpendicular position. A recessed section 3 parallel to the horizontal channel 2 allows for easy removal of the ringed instruments and allows for positioning of the instruments for proper operating room instrument handling procedures. This instrument tray also holds and displays, for easy access, multiple forceps, knife handles and retractors, all of this with taking up minimal space on an operating room back table.
In the double or two tiered embodiment, the same ability to retain multiple instruments in proper operating room ready state is found, however the double tiered embodiment may be configured to provide even more area for storage of instruments.